In the field of storage systems using hard magnetic disks, also known as Winchester drives, the density of storage of data on the disks has reached a relatively high level. Thus, for example, in the field of 51/4 inch diameter disk drives, each disk may have somewhat more than one thousand tracks, and each track may contain more than 20,000 bytes of information, with each byte including 8 binary digits or bits of information. Thus, each side of a 51/4 inch hard disk is capable of carrying in the order of one million bits of information; and the density of storage of information will no doubt increase, as it has in the past.
With this very high density of data storage, it is important that the magnetic heads by which information is written on the disks and is read therefrom, be very accurately positioned, and that the heads are not subject to significant vibration or undesired shifting in their position as a result of mechanical linkages, or thermal or mechanical cycling. Up to the present time, head positioners have usually been formed with a central rotating member, and with a plurality of rigid mounting arms being mechanically secured to the central head positioning member by screws or the like, as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,544,972, for example. The magnetic heads for reading and writing information on the hard disks, are then secured to the outwardly extending arms, by springy load beams, having sufficient resilience so that as the disks rotate at high speed, the magnetic heads "fly" at a height of a few millionths of an inch over the disk surface. However, the separate mechanical linkage between the spring load beams which support the head, and the central head positioner body, introduces the possiblility of vibration and loosening, as well as distortion due to differences in thermal expansion of the materials which are typically employed, so that the accuracy of positioning of the heads is severely limited.
Accordingly, a principal object of the present invention is to provide an improved magnetic head mounting arrangement with greater accuracy and consistency in the positioning of the magnetic heads, despite vibration, thermal cycling, and the like.